While looking after Verity in the afternoons, I ‘ve been watching too many repeats of Bergerac on UKOLDDRAMA or whatever the channel is called these days. The problem with having an active imagination like mine is that you can be sitting there one moment and before you know it the creative juices kick in and your brain starts kicking up “What if…?” scenarios. And as the end credits of this particular episode of Bergerac rolled by, I had written the entire story in my head.
The Missus poses with Bergerac’s Car [6 June 2007]
Again, the problem with having an artistic bent (oooer, missus – it’s just the cut of my trousers) is that once an idea goes into that mushy piece of gloop between your ears, you have to act on it. Otherwise, it whispers at you: “Darren, I’m still here. This is how the story goes and it is really really good and I’m going to keep repeating myself over and over in your head until you do something about it”. Well that’s what happens to me, anyway.
So over the past three days, I’ve found myself writing a TV script for the show. Titled “The Return of Bergerac”, the TV script was more of a writing exercise than anything else. I’ve never written a proper script before – done a play and loads and loads of traditional fiction, but never a TV script. So it was a new discipline to learn and a really interesting way of approaching a story. I went to the BBC Writers Room microsite and had a look at some scripts on their to give me an idea of how it is done. In fact, I found the whole experience rather satisfying. In fact, I should have thought about TV writing when I was young and maybe I’d have carved out a different career trajectory, rather than the spectacular nosedive I’ve performed over the past decade plus of being stuffed by the media industry.
But my script is finished, the Missus is giving it a read-through and once that’s done I’m going to send it off to the Beeb for a laugh. They have a submissions unit. I know this script has zero chance of ever being made into a proper TV show, but the masochist in me is thrilled at the idea of the decision makers at the BBC laughing in my face and throwing my script back at me as if it were a piece of fresh monkey shit.
Of course, once it is rejected, the Internet gives me the chance to put it on the website for my single solitary reader to download and enjoy. The Internet allows us failed artistes to ejaculate our creative juices into cyberspace to be lapped up by all and sundry.
Oh well, at least it keeps me occupied and out of trouble.
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